I love the process of of selling and negotiating.
My work luxury is that I am always selling something I believe in. It’s a book by an author who I chose to work with because I like what they do, believe it has merit and have faith that many others could love it too. While I am quite boundaried by the marketplace for books, no one tells me what to sell. But the agent’s relationship with their customers, the publishers (I’m going to ignore film & TV here and talk about it another time), is much more demanding.
We’re not necessarily on the same side.
You’re reading part 2 of my first newsletter: #1 The Problem of Too Many Books.
I know it’s been a bit negative so far but there is lots to love about publishing and to be excited about as a new author. If you come into this industry with a clear understanding of how it works, you’ll have a better chance of being successful in it, which works out better for everyone.
Publishers have their own business goals and have built processes to deliver their aims – which are not the same as the aims of their authors. It feels controversial to express that plain fact. It’s natural that a publishing business has its own agenda, distinct from the plans of the writers it publishes. But a pretence often creeps into discussions with authors that implies the resources of the publisher are at their service.
Publishers must publish a certain number of books each month. Dependent on size they might be publishing one title or fifty monthly. Once a book is published, depending on what they have judged about its likely success and the initial market response, they will normally commit some people’s time to keep pushing it for a while.
But within a couple of months of publication many titles are being viewed by their editor through the rear-view mirror only. They are part of the past. The new titles hold their attention now.
There’s an occasional title that has worked hugely – it’s sitting on the bestseller list, the author is being asked onto TV shows, the word of mouth is gushy and social media throbs with praise. That book continues to be supported heavily by the publisher’s sales and communications team (publicity plus marketing people) for months, sometimes even years. Meanwhile other more recent titles have faded in their minds.
Publishers have no time to look back.
It’s vital they retain a smooth production process. That’s the core of any corporation’s activity: organising repeatable processes that add value.
The publisher’s process usually works best when a book arrives with certain characteristics: the author has a following, some recognition and a background that offers some allure, intrigue, or curiosity; the book speaks to an issue that is popular and currently much discussed in traditional and social media. With those features, the book has a greater chance of making a market impact and sticking around.
From time to time, I take on an extraordinary book by a new author which offers no obvious sales, marketing or publicity opportunities.
The author is not widely known and has no backstory that’s likely to generate media interest. The book itself is beautifully written. It says something that feels important to me (whether it’s a novel or a non-fiction title). I’m pitching it as ‘a rare gem’ and it probably is one. I can succeed in finding an editor who loves the book as much as I do, sufficient even to coax their colleagues to allow a modest financial offer to be made. It feels magical at contract time. But publication time is much less exciting. Sales, marketing and publicity might have allowed the acquisition of the book through, but they haven’t committed to making it succeed. The editor has since acquired other books for bigger investment with more expectation of success. The rare gem has become an afterthought, pushed into a dark corner where it has little chance of shining.
The cost to the publisher of allowing their processes to get clogged up with ‘rare gems’ is greater than the opportunity cost of not publishing them at all.
If this sounds hopeless, then let me say that our industry publishes sooo many books that surprises do occur – small books that turn out to be huge. But these are statistical outliers, on the edges of the ‘normal curve’. I should say too, for exceptional literary fiction, where there’s a prospect of prize attention, the best publishers do create an adapted process for such gems. But even there you find evidence of the same sales, marketing and publicity rules: is the author young and engaging? Is the book’s subject zeitgeisty?
The ‘rare gems’ are the extreme example of the ‘too many books’ phenomenon.
Truth is, despite all the filtering of book proposals by editors and their colleagues in marketing, sales and publicity, pretty much every publisher buys far more books than they can and will publish properly. They acquire a lot and invest little more in quite of few of them at publication time.
This is why authors not only need guidance by an agent through the acquisition process, but also their support to avoid the routine fate of being ‘under-published’.
A lot of authors - including most of my best known writers - won't recognise this portrait of publishing. Their books were published with energy and confidence. Around publication time their diary was busy with media activities and attendance at crowded events where their book was promoted. The publisher's marketing and publicity staff were always available and chased down every opportunity to promote the book. The book seemed to be everywhere. There are specific reasons for this positive publishing experience. My goal is to make this happen every time.
Because for authors of mine who’ve been under-published, they suffer a range of emotions. I’ve seen them feeling foolish at being duped by the publisher’s hype at the time they acquired the book, or outraged at the marketing guff they believed that later amounted to a few tweets. Most want to be helpful and support the sales process for their book. They work their network, do any media that arises, but gradually sense they’re alone in pushing their book. Their biggest disappointment is a yearning for all those promised readers.
While the industry problem is structural, its habit of mendacity is not excused.
We agents notice and remember which publisher over-promises and which one honestly outlines a realistic plan and delivers on it: the publicity, the books in shops, the endorsements, the leveraging of the authors network, the social media campaign pursued with energy. If all that's done and book sales don't happen, it's disappointing but we get it – there are no guarantees. But when much is promised and little is done - be aware publisher: we see you, we judge you, we gossip about you to other authors and agents and a part of us hates you, even when we personally know you to be a likeable person who is decent but too weak for straight talk.
But within that bleakish outline, there are positive stories.
In the past two months one editor who acquired a debut literary title from me used his personal network to secure five incredible endorsements by established writers. In the same period, the editor of a crime novel by my author secured a whole bunch of endorsements, some with the help of this agency, some purely through her own contacts. That’s tough to achieve. You can send out copies of the book to a list of established writers. But getting them to read the book in time takes targeting and coaxing. Earlier this year a non-fiction editor provided my author with editorial insights that lifted the book to a whole new level. Publicists can generate surprising amounts of attention; imaginative marketeers have wowed my authors with fresh ways to reach a readership. This month a publisher’s salesperson secured major commitment from all the key booksellers for a debut literary crime novel. These things all happen. Even when their work is not special, I can see that the publishers working on my authors’ books are professional, busy, often stressed and routinely trying to do their best. They are just dealing with the fact that this author’s book wasn’t one of those chosen for investment of time and money. You can dream on but that’s the brutal truth.
There is a way through this problem of too many books for agents, authors and publishers alike.
It’s not the same route every time and it doesn’t always get you there, but it certainly improves your chances of achieving your book goals.
More on that in newsletters to come.
Disclaimer: It should be obvious, but just in case: anything you read in these newsletters is my thinking, my idea or my opinion at the time of writing. What I say has nothing to do with either my colleagues at Mulcahy Sweeney Associates Literary Agency or our colleagues at the associated agencies within the MMBCreative grouping. I myself might disagree with what I’ve written a week later. One purpose in writing these pieces is to garner responses from people who might know more or think clearer than me. Years ago, someone said a thing that stuck: “When I discover I’m wrong, I change my view. What do you do?”
Hint for writers: if you have a book proposal you want to submit to our agency, we’d like to see it. Please head straight to the submissions section of our website. We’ve tried to design our new submissions process to be as effective as possible. We’ve now created a system that ensures we can read everything we’re sent - promptly. I’ll admit that in the nineteen years that I’ve been an owner of this agency in its various forms (Mulcahy & Viney, Mulcahy Conway Associates and now Mulcahy Sweeney Associates), we’ve not always committed the resources to stay on top of submissions (we were smaller and there were a lot of them). The improvements put in place ensure your submission will be read. The best of them will be discussed by Sallyanne Sweeney, my fellow director, and Edwina de Charnace, our newly-acquiring young agent colleague and me.
Another excellent & thought provoking post - 'under-published' is the perfect phrase.
Yes. Too many books. Too many wannabes. Too many people on the planet. Too many tourists flocking to the holiday island that is mi hogar… And not enough resources to sustain us (food, water, affordable housing, reader-hours…) Basically we’re fucked, no? There again, once climate crisis wipes us all out and returns the planet to its rightful owners (las cucarachas), literature will be just a beautiful blip in the cosmos.
<removes tongue from cheek, LOLs, thanks Agent Secret for his candour, and resumes his tragic trudge trough the query trenches>